Metaverse: Capturing our need to be

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My first understanding of virtual reality was from the 2009 film Avatar. It was even more epic because I watched it in 3-d. The contrast between former Marine Jake Sully’s life, who was disabled in real life but in his avatar form he was a thriving able-bodied man experiencing a whole new world and finding love through his avatar. For Jake it was a very serious and intense form of escapism. Escapism is one of the many reasons the Metaverse will thrive. It allows you to detach from your world and go to the other world. And like the internet, and from Jake Sully’s experience, I believe it might be very addictive.

This reminds me of when Instagram introduced the avatar feature. I was very excited about creating my avatar and impressed with the range of body features and skin tones Instagram had for its users to create an avatar with. So my avatar has dark skin, red lipstick (which I love to wear), hair texture that resembles mine and I even have glasses that look like mine. Although there room for improvement, my avatar looks like me.

Brian Jung, in his ted talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUovs0n4bA ,  mentioned that the pandemic sped up need for the virtual world. Combined with the fact that we as humans are innately in need of human connection. During the pandemic because of the isolation depression levels went up. So the meta verse makes sense for this: I might not be able to be with people physically but I want to interact with. So, we can go to concerts in the metaverse and incidents like the Astro world concert stampede, which caused a lot of deaths can be avoided.  Because of how immersive the metaverse can be, it is perfect for concerts.  

But as humans we want to look good even in virtual reality. Soon we can get clothes in the digital world. Nike, the king of the shoe game has acquired a company called ARTFX and has joined the metaverse. if you buy a Nike shoe, you will also get it digitally. So also, Louis Vuitton  and Gucci are all joining the metaverse and doing the same thing, creating the ability for people to expand their digital wardrobe as well as their physical wardrobe.

Day by day, the metaverse is finding ways to virtually replicate our reality in such a way as never before. Certain companies must either adapt or become antiquated. I foresee regular video conferencing platforms like zoom becoming obsolete.  Why have a video conference when I can be with other people in the meeting virtually. Virtual and augmented realities have accurately captured our need to be present when being present is impossible. But getting to the level of Avatar movie would be colossal. Imagine if people didn’t want to come back to reality? That’s interesting and scary at the same time!

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